Recently, the increased speed of networks has enabled streaming to mobile terminals. Also, technologies for transmission and reception of moving image data using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) have been proposed in order to provide streaming services that are aimed at mobile terminals and fixed terminals, such as personal computers (PCs). The steaming technologies using HTTP (hereinafter, referred to as HTTP streaming technologies) are technologies in which a server divides streaming data into a plurality of segments and transmits files of the segments requested by a client to the client using HTTP. The client consecutively plays the received files, thereby enabling the moving image data to be viewed.
Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) is one of the HTTP streaming technologies. MPEG-DASH is being standardized as International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 23009-1 and is regarded as an effective scheme for implementing multi-layer streaming distribution. MPEG-DASH aims to implement smooth streaming by using a mechanism for dynamically changing the resolution or bit rate of moving image data so as to address issues related to the network bandwidth, specs of terminals, and so forth.
A server that uses MPEG-DASH divides multi-rate streaming data into a plurality of segments so as to prepare segment files. A client checks the network bandwidth and its terminal specs on the basis of an HTTP processing rate (the downloaded size/the time taken for downloading) for example, and determines a segment file containing the moving image data having the resolution or bit rate used for streaming carried out between the server and the client.